Echo-derived peak cardiac power output-to-left ventricular mass with cardiopulmonary exercise testing predicts outcome in patients with heart failure and depressed systolic function.

Aims: Peak cardiac power output-to-mass (CPOM) represents a measure of the rate at which cardiac work is delivered respect to the potential energy stored in left ventricular (LV) mass. We studied the value of CPOM and cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) in risk stratification of patients with heart failure (HF).

Materials And Results: We studied 159 patients with chronic HF (mean rest LV ejection fraction 30%) undergoing CPET and exercise stress echocardiography.

Skin blood flow pattern in burns outcomes.

Functional microcirculatory aspects of burned sites were examined including areas of self-healed burns, and grafted areas. Donor areas were also examined. In 10 patients with burns in the lower limbs, both self-healed and with grafts, the microcirculatory response was evaluated by Laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) measuring for each site the resting flux at 36 degrees, the postural venular-arteriolar reflex (VAR) and the flux at 41 degrees (heating).

Coronary vasodilator capacity and epicardial vessel remodeling in physiological and hypertensive hypertrophy.

The aim of this study was to compare resting coronary flow velocity, determinants of myocardial oxygen demand, and coronary vasodilator capacity in subjects with physiological, exercise-induced, and hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy. Sixteen healthy sedentary men, 16 endurance athletes, and 16 hypertensive subjects (mean+/-SEM for left ventricular mass index: 94.9+/-5.

Early impairment of coronary flow reserve and increase in minimum coronary resistance in borderline hypertensive patients.

Objective: To evaluate relations between coronary flow velocity and myocardial oxygen demand at rest, as well as coronary vasodilator capacity and flow reserve, in asymptomatic subjects with borderline hypertension as compared to normotensive controls and patients with sustained high blood pressure (HBP) and without left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH).

Subjects And Methods: Forty-two asymptomatic males were studied: 13 healthy normotensive volunteers; 12 subjects with borderline HBP and 17 asymptomatic subjects with sustained systemic hypertension. Coronary flow velocity in left anterior descending artery and coronary flow reserve were assessed by transesophageal echo-doppler at baseline and during intravenous adenosine infusion.

Homogeneously reduced versus regionally impaired myocardial blood flow in hypertensive patients: two different patterns of myocardial perfusion associated with degree of hypertrophy.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to quantitatively measure regional and global myocardial blood flow and coronary reserve in hypertensive patients without coronary artery disease and to assess the correlation with left ventricular mass.

Background: The effect of left ventricular hypertrophy on regional vasodilating coronary capability in arterial hypertension is controversial, and no quantitative method has been applied to assess a possible correlation.

Methods: Positron emission tomography was performed in 50 untreated hypertensive patients and 13 normotensive subjects.

Assessment of coronary reserve by transoesophageal Doppler echocardiography. Direct comparison between different modalities of dipyridamole and adenosine administration.

Background: This study was undertaken to compare the coronary vasodilator response to different application modalities of intravenous vasodilators, in order to identify the optimal pharmacological protocol for the evaluation of coronary reserve by means of transoesophageal Doppler echocardiography.

Methods: Blood flow velocity in the left anterior descending artery, coronary vascular resistance and left main coronary artery cross-sectional area were assessed by transoesophageal echo-Doppler during an i.v.